Bale pickup, or loading, machines are well known and are utilized to pick up agricultural products that have been previously baled. As is well known, such bales of agricultural products are commonly formed by baling machines with the bales being bound by twine or wire encircling a bundle of plant stalks. Such bales are then normally discharged from the baling machine while in the field and some of the bales do not come to rest in positions convenient for later pickup by the bale loading machine. Such is the case, for example, where the bale is not aligned with the direction of travel of the baling machine or comes to rest with an undesired side in ground contact such as, for example, with the twine or wire contiguous to the ground when pickup requires the twine or wire to be wound horizontally about the bale and, thus, out of contact with the ground.
It has been found that, despite the use of care during the baling process, many discharged bales still come to rest in positions that preclude pickup due to such diverse factors as landing on corrugations, ditches, or large root clump normally found in fields, falling from the baler while the baler is making a turn, incorrect installation of the chute in the baling machine causing improper bale ejection, and/or unstable operation of the baling machine due to adverse field conditions.
While bales were loaded by hand there was, of course, no substantial problem with the positioning of the particular bales. However, bale loading machines now known or utilized normally require that the bales be presented to the loading machine with a particular orientation in order for the loading machine to properly load the bales. The required bale positioning for at least one well known loading machine is with the plant stalk in a vertical position with the twine or wire horizontally encircling the bale. Thus, where this type of positioning is required, bales that have the twine or wire contiguous to the ground must be rotated about a horizontal axis in order to bring the twine or wire into the required horizontal encircling position, while bales land crosswise or partially crosswire to the direction of loading machine travel must be turned about a vertical axis in order to position, or align, the bales for proper entry into the loading machine.
Heretofore, it has been necessary that the machine operator dismount from the machine, turn the bale, sometimes with the aid of a bale hook or the like, and then remount the machine before continuing the loading operation. This activity was obviously time consuming as well as being unsafe and inconvenient.
Bale loading machines have been suggested heretofore that incorporate a bale positioning, or orienting, device thereon. Such devices, however, have not proved to be satisfactory to meet all bale positioning requirements and, more particularly, have not proved to be satisfactory in positioning a bale where movement of the bale was required about a horizontal axis and/or about both horizontal and vertical axes. In addition, known bale positioning devices have not proved satisfactory for use where the bale moves a substantial distance such as by repeated rotation, to facilitate loading such as, for example, away from a ditch or fence line.
Examples of known bale loading machines incorporating bale positioning devices are to be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,597,220 and 2,675,116.